


Quandary

by deskclutter



Category: Gyakuten Saiban | Ace Attorney
Genre: Community: 31_days, Family, Fluff, Gen, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-25
Updated: 2010-06-25
Packaged: 2017-10-10 06:37:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/96705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deskclutter/pseuds/deskclutter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trucy Wright has a problem, and it is up to her Daddy to save the day. (A story of how Phoenix Wright lost the battery cover on his phone.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quandary

**Title:** Quandary  
**Day/Theme:** May 23rd / Who can love you and still be standing?  
**Series:** Ace Attorney  
**Character/Pairing:** Phoenix, Trucy  
**Rating:** G

  
Trucy Wright was in a q-u-a-n-d-a-r-y, which was a spelling word this week. She even had a sentence to go with it which was this:  
__

_A magician without an audience is a magician in a quandary._

If she had had her way, it would have gone like this:  
__

_A magician, nay, a _performer_ without an audience is a person of great talent in a quandary, in which case s/he should proceed directly to the Wright Talent Agency, where we will definitely right that wrong! (Collection of $200 available only after second performance)_

But her Daddy had said that that sentence would probably depress her teachers and also that advertising during her spelling test would maybe be a little bit tacky. And Trucy couldn't memorise the long sentence anyway.

Trucy had a really nifty Daddy. He wasn't her real Daddy, who was On The Run, but he looked after her and he had an office and he had bought her the plate of plastic spaghetti that her other Daddy had never wanted to listen about.

He also supported her life's calling, which Trucy assured him was a worthwhile investment. She _was_ the sole breadwinner of the family.

But right now, her art was suffering, for Trucy Wright was definitely, absolutely, positively in a Quandary. If Trucy didn't have an audience, her performance suffered, her income suffered with it, _ergo_ (which was not a spelling word, but a Latin word, which Daddy's friend Uncle Miles had taught her and which meant 'therefore; hence; consequently') she and Daddy would sink in the flames of poverty and despair!

Whenever Trucy caught her Daddy in a lie, he muttered something about lies and tangled webs, which was probably why he lied less now, since Daddy didn't really like spiders. Quandaries were like lies, in a way, because each one spun out and out and out like tangled cobwebbery.

So Trucy had to fix her first quandary, or Daddy would squeal again, like that one time when he had been scrubbing the toilets to a picture perfect gleam, and then Trucy had had to bring in a roll of newspaper to carry the natty arachnid out.

She did this by going to her Daddy. "Daddy," Trucy announced. "I'm in a quandary."

Trucy's Daddy was named Phoenix, "by sadly unironic parents," Daddy had once said to Uncle Miles. He had blue eyes, like a puppy, and a nice smile, though he said Trucy's was nicer. Daddy used to be a lawyer, but he had fallen on Hard Times, and now he was a very bad piano player because he _never_ practised, and everyone knew practise make perfect.

Like right now, for instance, Daddy was playing with his phone rather than the piano. Trucy suspected that the phone was only slightly younger than herself. Much like Mr. Charley, who had belonged to Daddy's former ("Never, ever call her old," Daddy had once told her earnestly) teacher and deserved lots of quality care, the phone was a Relic. It was blue, and Daddy had only just figured out how to make it stop playing the theme music for Steel Samurai, which was the most fantastic show ever and Aunt Maya was the most fantastic aunt ever for sending them in taped form, because Daddy still had a few problems with the DVD player.

"Are you, now," Daddy said, swivelling his wheely chair around to face her. Most people would have brushed Trucy off, but Aunt Maya had trained Daddy not to when she had lived with him, and she hadn't even had to use a waterfall, which pushed it up into an Amazing Feat. Almost as Amazing as the Gramaryes!

"I don't have an audience," Trucy told him, with a twist in her mouth.

"We can't have that," Daddy said. "Why do you need an audience, again?"

"To practise, of course!" Trucy was forced to explain, because even though Aunt Maya could work miracles, training Daddy to be sensitive to a woman's wants were beyond even the Master of the Kurain Channelling Technique.

"Oh, right," Daddy replied. "Why don't you use me for your audience, then?" he said with a smile.

Trucy grinned. Quandary solved! "Of course!" she said, bouncing on her toes. "..."

"Wait," she paused. "What should I perform today?"

"Uh..." Daddy said.

"My mind's gone blank!" cried Trucy in dismay. She beamed at her Daddy. "See, it's a good idea I decided to practise today, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it really is!" Daddy said. "Okay, um, let's take this from the top. You're Trucy Wright, Magician Extraordinaire. What's your favourite trick?"

"Hmm..." Trucy said, rubbing her chin with a white-gloved hand. When confronted by an interviewer, it was always a good idea to pause so the interviewer could form a favourable impression rather than a rushed glimpse. "My best trick would _pro_bably be my disappearing act!"

"Excellent," Daddy said. "So, would you care to demonstrate for us today?"

"Gladly, sir!" Trucy said with a tip of her hat and an charming grin. "If you would hand me something you'd like me to vanish..."

"Uh ... here!" A piece of thin blue plastic landed in her hand.

Trucy blinked. "Don't you need this, Daddy?" she asked. "For your phone?"

Daddy waved the blank screen of his phone at her. "Responsible audience members keep their phones turned off. And, er, the battery's dead, anyway," he confessed. "I was just changing it."

"Okay, then!" said Trucy brightly. "Are you ready to see this doodlebug--"

"Battery cover."

"Battery cover," repeated Trucy obediently. "Are you ready for me to make it disappear forever?" Ominous chords struck the air as she passed it in a tantalising circle.

"Ooh," said her Daddy with a look of exaggerated awe on his stubbly face. "Aah."

"Alakazam!" shouted Trucy, and in a flash! The battery cover disappeared. Her face lit up and she took a modest bow. "Ta dah!"

"Excellent show," her Daddy clapped.

Trucy dusked her head modestly. "I learnt from the best. You were a really good audience too, Daddy."

"I do my best," said Daddy. He hesitated a little before he asked, "Did it help?"

"Of course!" said Trucy, and her Daddy's face broke into an incandescent grin.

"I'm glad," he said, and Trucy could tell he meant it. He gave a little cough and turned his face away. "Always glad to be of service. Can I have the battery cover back now?"

At that, Trucy frowned. "But Daddy," she said. "I made it disappear forever."

"No, really," Daddy said.

"No, _really_," Trucy said. "Look!" She turned out her pockets, sending a little dove and two pink handkerchiefs freewheeling to the ground -- but no battery cover.

"...Oh," her Daddy said. "That might pose a bit of a problem. I kind of needed that."

"Oops?" offered Trucy sheepishly.

"Oops," agreed Daddy, sighing a little and rubbing the back of his head.

"Will it be okay?" Trucy asked.

Daddy stared balefully at her out of one eye for a moment. "That depends," he said, and then the corner of his mouth picked up. "Are you still in a quandary?"

"Nope!" Trucy said.

"Then we're fine," he smiled. "Pass me the duct tape, would you? I've got a new battery I need to tape into my phone."

That week, Trucy _aced_ her spelling test, and then her Daddy got her an audience at the Wonder Bar and she never needed to practise on him again.

But she still gave him a free show sometimes, because her Daddy was old and he needed her to look after him and take spiders out for him, but he was still pretty nifty anyway.


End file.
